‘Swear if you like, but I do. I held my mother’s hand and watched her die. I was five years old.’
The expression on Will’s face struck her to silence, her anger withering in its wake. No wonder he’d never wanted to talk about his childhood.
Five years old—almost the same age as Philippe! And she had thought stealing her son from his home a trial too great for any child to bear.
Compassion—tinged with shame—filled her.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered.
‘She was the only being in the world who’d ever cared for me or tried to protect me,’ he said softly, staring beyond her, seemingly unaware of her presence. The anguish in his eyes said he was reliving the experience. ‘Though I was always hungry and ragged, even at that age, I knew she was doing the best she could for me.’
Elodie hesitated, unsure what to say that might bring him back from the emotional abyss into which he’d tumbled. Then he shook his head, as if throwing off the memories, and turned to her with an apologetic smile. ‘I told you the tale wasn’t edifying.’
‘How did you survive?’
‘I already knew the street boys, though Mama had tried to keep me from running with them. They found me at the market, going through rubbish piles with another, smaller boy, looking for the bits thrown away by the vendors as too tough or rotten to sell. When two of them tried to take away what the younger lad had gleaned, I fought them off. Their leader, an older boy, stopped us. He probably could have finished me with one fist, but instead, he ordered them to leave me alone. Said he liked my spirit and they could use another fighter. So they took me in, taught me the ways of the street.’
‘How to thieve?’
He nodded. ‘Thieving, house-breaking, lock-picking, card-sharking, knife-fighting. Sleight-of-hand and how to do a few magic tricks to beguile the gullible while a mate picked their pockets. The real trick was to become skilled enough to win without using a weighted deck or marked cards.’
‘It must have been quite a change, when the earl brought you to Swynford Court.’
Will laughed, a rueful smile on his lips. ‘By then, I was in line to become a street leader for the boss, and resisted mightily being dragged into the country by the brother of the toff who had abandoned my mother. Nor was I interested in exchanging my mates for three dandified cousins. Alastair and Dom were as unimpressed by me as I was by them. But Max … for Max, it was different. I was a Ransleigh by blood and that was that: whatever it took, he would turn me into one.’
‘What did it take?’ she asked, curious. ‘I don’t imagine you would have made the task easy.’
‘I did not. After beating some respect into me, he used a bit of everything—coaxing, challenging, empathising, daring, rewarding. By the end of the summer, much to the chagrin of Alastair and Dom, who had bet him the transformation couldn’t be done, he’d instilled in me a sufficient modicum of gentlemanly behaviour that the earl agreed not to return me to Seven Dials.’
Elodie thought about the dangers of a child’s existence on the streets and shuddered. ‘Grace à Dieu he didn’t send you back!’
‘I thank God, too. Max saved my life, plain and simple. But passing muster with the earl was just the first step. In many ways, Eton and Oxford were more difficult, not a single test but a limitless series of them. It was Max who taught me there would never be an end to bullies wanting to pummel me, or betterborn snobs trying to shame me, and it was smarter to outwit and outmanoeuvre them rather than fight. A born diplomat, even as a boy, he knew I was too proud to take money from him. Though the earl paid my school fees, I had no allowance; it was Max and my cousins who lured the other boys into playing cards or dice with me, or betting on my magic tricks. I’d always win enough for a meat pasty at Eton, or steak and a pint of ale at Oxford.’
‘So that’s where you perfected your beguiling pedlar’s tricks.’
He cupped her chin in his hands and tilted her face until she met the intensity of his gaze. ‘So you understand why I’m so loyal to Max and my cousins? Why the bond between us is as strong as the one between a mother and her son?’
He wanted her to realise why, despite all they had shared, he was still willing to sacrifice her to redeem his cousin. Though she’d thought by now she was incapable of feeling anything, a sharp, anguished pang stabbed in her gut.
‘Seeing all you’ve done since Vienna, I already understood. I respect Monsieur Max, too. He was kind to me, even tried to protect me as best he could from St Arnaud’s abuse. Nothing but the imperative to get my son back would have forced me into tricking one of the very few true gentlemen I’ve ever met. A gentleman who offered to assist me, not to further some scheme of his own, but out of genuine concern.’
As everything else, that story led back to her loss. Recalling it like a knife slash across her heart, she said, ‘Ah, mon Dieu, it’s even worse, knowing I entrapped him and lost my son anyway. At least now I can attempt to make amends by fulfilling our bargain. I will testify to whatever you wish to vindicate your cousin and clear his reputation.’
Will hesitated. ‘That might not be such a good idea.’
‘Not a good idea?’ she echoed, confused. ‘Haven’t you just spent the last few weeks dragging me across Europe to do just that?’
‘True, but your testimony might have … severe consequences if, instead of viewing this as a personal matter concerning only Max’s reputation, the Foreign Office decided to open an official enquiry. The penalty for being judged an accomplice in an attempt to murder the allied commander …’ His words trailed off.
Would be a long sojourn in prison, or death, she knew. ‘That outcome is always a possibility, although both de Merlonville and Armitage said neither government wants a formal investigation. But if they should, it would be as you told me in Vienna: a life for a life. Not so bad a bargain. Monsieur Max would become a great man, who could do much good. I could do this one thing and then I … I am of no more good to anyone anyway.’
For a long moment he held her gaze. ‘You’re good for me,’ Will whispered.
The tenderness of it made her already-decimated heart ache. ‘Sweet Will,’ she said, attempting a smile. Their strong mutual attraction didn’t change the melancholy facts. The unique, incomparable interlude of their journey from Vienna, wary co-conspirators who’d become mutual admirers, then friends, and then the most passionate of lovers, was almost over.
The silly, battered heart she’d thought was beyond feeling anything contracted in a spasm of grief that she must lose Will, too. She stifled its instinctive demand that she find some way to extend their time together.
But the English coast loomed just beyond a narrow stretch of restless sea and she’d never been one to deny reality. It was time to see the bargain she’d made to its conclusion.
Gently pushing Will’s hands away, she took the last sip from her mug. ‘I imagine you’ve conjured a vessel and some good sailing weather for tomorrow. We should rest now, if we’re to be away early in the morning.’
Looking troubled, Will opened his lips as if to speak. Elodie stopped him with a hand to his lips. ‘There’s no more to say. Rest easy, Will. C’est presque fini. Your quest is almost done.’
Putting aside her mug, Elodie swiftly disrobed down to her chemise and climbed into the uneven bed, settling back on the pillows with a sigh. In the hollow emptiness within, lit only by the warmth of tenderness for Will, the decision to testify, come what may, sat well.
She wasn’t sure when she’d made it. Some time during the long silent hours of moving north from Paris, probably, as the reality of life without Philippe settled into her shredded heart. She could repay the debt she owed Max Ransleigh, even the balance between. Like a person suddenly blinded, she could see no future beyond sitting before a green baize table in a Foreign Office enquiry room.
‘May you have a happy, distinguished life, Philippe, mon ange,’ she whispered, as a rip tide of exhaustion swept her towards sleep.
Bone-weary
, Will climbed in bed beside Elodie.
During the last of their discussion, he’d wanted to interrupt her, to disagree, to tell her how unique and beautiful she was. But as he hadn’t yet worked out a remedy for her stark assessment of her condition—a woman without home, without family, without her son—she would have seen any such speech as pretty, empty words.
He wanted to tell her she meant too much for him to let her become a sacrifice to Max’s redemption. But how could he expect her to believe him, when every step he’d taken since arriving in Vienna had been directed towards doing just that?
Unable to voice or reconcile the conflicting claims of loyalty clashing within him, he fell back to the only language that wouldn’t fail. Gently he turned her pliant body towards him.
She murmured when he kissed her, then encircled his head with her arms and pulled him closer. He took the kiss deeper, moving his hands to caress her, filling her when she opened to him, showing her with his mouth and hands and body how much he cherished her.
Afterwards, as she dozed in his arms, exhausted and satisfied, Will lay awake, unable to find sleep. Tormented by a dilemma with no satisfactory answer, his mind spun fruitlessly round and round the final points of their discussion, like a roulette wheel before the croupier settles the ball.
For all his early years and then his time in the army, his survival had depended on making the correct, lightning-quick decision. But from the beginning of his doubts in Vienna through betrayal and reconciliation in Paris, he’d put off deciding what the final move in his game with Elodie would be. With arrival in England imminent, he could put it off no longer. And he was still not sure what to do.
He owed Max his life. But, he might as well admit it, Elodie now held his heart.
A vagabond all his life, he’d never thought of settling down on any of the small properties he’d been acquiring the last few years. Never thought of finding a wife or begetting children.
No more than she had he a home to offer her, and his only family were his cousins. The earl would sever their tenuous connection in a heartbeat, and if he were to betray his vow to Max to side with the woman who had ruined his cousin’s life, he wouldn’t have them, either.
He wished Max lived in the far reaches of Northumberland, so he would have longer to figure out what to do.
He would still willingly give his life to save Max’s. But he was no longer willing to let Elodie give hers. Though he’d been dodging around the fact since the attack on her outside Karlsruhe, after almost losing her again to St Arnaud, he finally could no longer avoid admitting the truth. He’d fallen in love with Elodie Lefevre.
He wasn’t sure what he’d expected love to be, but it wasn’t the hearts-and-flowers, bring-her-jewels-to-woo-her-into-bed sort of fancy he’d imagined. More a gut-deep bond that made the air fresher, the sun brighter, the taste of wine sweeter because she shared it with him. A deep hunger to possess her, to be one with her, to satisfy her, that seemed to increase rather than diminish the longer they were together. A sense that losing her would suck all the joy, excitement and pleasure from life, leaving him like a mechanical doll, gears and levers taking it through the motions of life, but dead and empty inside.
He simply couldn’t lose her.
Admitting this didn’t make the way ahead any clearer. Though Elodie desired him, she’d given no indication that she felt for him anything deeper than fondness. But whether she returned his affection or not, he now had no intention of bringing her to the Foreign Office to testify. Despite what Armitage and de Merlonville avowed, it was too risky, when her testimony could too easily detour down a path to prison or the gallows.
Instead of leaving Elodie at one of his properties and going first to London to snoop around the Foreign Office and see if he could discover what evidence would be sufficient to clear Max, perhaps they should proceed straight to Max himself. Max, much better attuned to the intricacies of the Foreign Office, would be in a better position to know if there were a means for Elodie to absolve him without her having to testify in person. By means of a sworn deposition, perhaps, which he could have delivered after he’d gotten her safely out of England.
His heart quickened at that solution, then slowed and he frowned. But if Max thought there was no way to clear his name but for Elodie to appear before a tribunal in London, he might press Will to take her there. And Elodie, in her current state, would agree to go.
Perhaps it would be better to sail around the south coast to Falmouth and catch a ship to the Americas … except he didn’t have sufficient funds with him for such a trip; he’d need to visit his bankers in London first.
Maybe he should just go to Max, explain to him privately why he was breaking his solemn vow. Max had never been vindictive; even if Will’s betrayal meant Max would lose for ever the life that should have been his, he knew Max wouldn’t force him to risk the life of the woman Will now realised he loved.
But at the thought of facing the man to whom he owed more than anyone else on earth and admitting he was reneging on his pledge, his gut churned. The earl would say that Will had no honour to lose. But Max had always believed in him.
So, if he was prepared to betray Max, and it seemed that he was, he might as well make a clean break. Travel through Kent without stopping to see Max, go to London, obtain funds and head at once to Cornwall to take ship. He could write to Max later, when Elodie was safe in America, beyond the reach of French or English law.
His heart torn with anguish at the thought of leaving behind the only family he’d known—and losing the respect of the one man whose good opinion he valued more than any other—Will sprang up and paced the small room. After several circuits, as he gazed down again at Elodie’s sleeping form, he knew if he must choose between Max and Elodie—between cousins, friendship, family, honour and Elodie—he would choose her.
They would go straight to London, obtain funds and leave for the Americas.
Then, the thought of betrayal bitter in his mouth, it struck him that leaving England immediately would only compound the dishonour. Max had believed in him, counselled him and championed him since they were boys. He couldn’t just disappear without facing him. If he was going to break his pledge and for ever doom his cousin’s government aspirations, he owed it to Max to tell him face to face.
He’d not add the white feather of cowardice to his disgrace.
Max might try to change his mind, but Will knew, on the bond they shared, that Max would never try to prevent him from leaving, or put Elodie in danger by sending the authorities after them.
So tomorrow they would sail in the smuggler’s cutter to the Kentish coast and make their way to Max’s farm. He’d confess his intentions to Max, receive his curses or farewells, then take Elodie to the safety of the Americas.
In her present despairing and listless state, Elodie might not agree to go with him. Well, he’d figure out a way to persuade her. She’d probably end up liking it, with new adventures to share and a whole continent to explore, not a town or river or meadow in it tarnished by anguished memories of the past. Maybe they could end up at the French-speaking colony at Nouvelle Orléans. He could contact his friend Hal Waterman, investigate the possibilities of investing in this new land.
Some of the terrible burden lifted from his chest, leaving lightness and a peace that testified to the rightness of the decision. Though the agony of abandoning Max still hollowed his gut, Will returned to the bed, took Elodie in his arms and slept at last.
Chapter Eighteen
On a drizzly grey afternoon three days later, mud-spattered and weary, Will and Elodie pulled up their tired mounts before a set of elaborate wrought-iron gates with the image of a running horse in the centre. ‘This must be it—Denby Lodge,’ Will said, dismounting to knock on the gatehouse door. ‘I have to say, I’ll be glad of a bath and a good dinner.’
‘I still think we should have engaged a room for me at the inn in the last village,’ Elodie said. Now that the moment to confront Max Ransl
eigh had almost arrived, anxiety was filtering through the fog of lethargy that had cocooned her through their Channel crossing—Will having managed to order up fair seas and a swift passage—and the two days of hard riding since. ‘I’m sure Monsieur Max will be happy to offer you hospitality. I’m not so sure he’ll be willing to offer it to me.’
‘You needn’t worry,’ Will told her as an elderly man trotted from the brick house to unlock the tall gates. ‘Max is a diplomat, remember; he’ll receive you with such perfect courtesy, you’ll never be able to tell what he’s really feeling.’
Turning to the gatekeeper, Will asked, ‘Is the Lodge straight on?’
‘Aye, sir,’ the man replied, bowing. ‘Follow the drive past the barns and paddocks. The manor will be to your right once the drive rounds the parkland.’
After handing the gatekeeper a coin and acknowledging his thanks, Will ushered Elodie through the entry gates, then remounted and proceeded with her down the gravelled drive.
‘The Denby Stud is quite famous,’ Will told her as they trotted past lush, fenced meadows. ‘Several army comrades purchased their cavalry horses from Sir Martin and swore by their quality. Swift, strong-boned, long on stamina and well mannered.’ He laughed. ‘Though I can’t imagine what Max finds to keep himself busy here, I am curious to meet his wife, Caroline. My cousin Alastair says she’s nothing in his usual style. Max always preferred ladies of stunning beauty and alluring charm. A horse breeder is definitely a departure.’
Surprised by Will’s sudden loquaciousness, when they had travelled mostly in silence the last few days, Elodie was about to question him when she realised that, so attuned had he become to her, he must have sensed her uneasiness. His commentary was meant to inform her about the farm and the owner she was about to meet—but also to distract her from worrying about Max.
Once again, his thoughtfulness warmed the bleakness within her. How she wished they might have met years ago, when she was young and heart-whole, when she believed the future bright with possibilities.
The Rake to Redeem Her Page 16